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Appalachian Mountain Club Launches Recreation Guide App For PA Highlands
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The Appalachian Mountain Club just launched “Highlands Mobile,” a free mobile website for getting outdoors in the Pennsylvania Highlands that features interactive trail maps with an activity locator for hiking, paddling, fishing, biking, and horseback riding.
Designed for on-the-go trip planning, Highlands Mobile allows users with Smartphones or other web-enabled mobile devices to automatically find their current location, choose their preferred outdoor activity, and get directions to the nearest trailhead or boat launch.
Highlands Mobile currently features 22 parks and trails in the Pennsylvania Highlands and is available for free online.
The Pennsylvania Highlands span almost two-million acres and form an important statewide greenway, arching from South Mountain on the Maryland border across a band of mountainous country to the steep watershed lands along the Delaware River.
This greenbelt is the backyard for almost every major city in southeastern Pennsylvania and provides critical public resources, including clean drinking water, outdoor recreation opportunities, and wildlife habitat.
Key features of Highlands Mobile include:
-- Twenty-two featured parks and trails in the Pennsylvania Highlands, with plans to offer over 100 outdoor locations in 2012.
-- Activity locator to search parks and trails for specific outdoor activities, including hiking, paddling, fishing, biking, and horseback riding.
-- GPS-enabled directions to trailheads, parking areas, and visitor centers through Google Maps, which also allow users to search for parks and trails by proximity.
-- Interactive maps of trails include terrain and parking areas, with the ability to zoom-in on a specific trail, track progress using GPS coordinates, and find nearby historical points of interest, as well as shops, restaurants, and overnight accommodations.
-- Social media share buttons to update friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter with information about the selected location.
-- Downloadable trail and road maps are easily stored on the phone as a safety precaution, if mobile reception is lost.
-- Easy access to AMC’s “Hike the Highlands” blog as an additional recreation and conservation resource for the region, including news about AMC’s efforts in the Pennsylvania Highlands.
In addition to Highlands Mobile, AMC has unveiled its new “Pennsylvania Highlands Water and You Learning Center,” an animated, family-friendly online water resource guide to the region.
Through interesting facts, helpful information, and photos, the learning center highlights the region’s water sources, everyday uses for water, and ways to help protect drinking water and habitat for fish and other wildlife.
Visit the Water and You Learning Center on AMC’s enhanced “Hike the Highlands” blog, with its new easy-to-search archive of land and water recreation and conservation topics.
“Highlands Mobile makes it that much easier to enjoy the wealth of recreational opportunities in the Pennsylvania Highlands by serving up trail and map information on people’s mobile devices,” said Mark Zakutansky, Mid-Atlantic Policy Manager for the Appalachian Mountain Club. “The Appalachian Mountain Club is excited to expand on its Highlands Mobile content in 2012, with more than 100 featured locations planned.”
AMC celebrated the launch of “Highlands Mobile” on Saturday at an event to recognize the efforts of local businesses, municipalities, Chester County, and partner organizations to protect the Brandywine-Struble Greenway.
As part of this local initiative, AMC is raising awareness for the East Branch of the Brandywine River’s unique recreational potential as a future water trail for paddling and fishing that connects to walking trails in the green space along the river.
“The Brandywine-Struble Greenway, a regional planning initiative of the Brandywine Conservancy, is envisioned as a 30-mile long corridor of varying width from the Delaware state line to the Pennsylvania Highlands Greenway in northern Chester County,” said Sheila Fleming, Senior Planner, Brandywine Conservancy. “It will include an interconnected system of trails, parks, river access points, riparian buffers and pathways that link the Brandywine with Chester and Delaware County communities, rural areas, and natural areas. The Brandywine-Struble Greenway will be dedicated to conserving natural resources, helping people connect to the Brandywine, and building healthy and sustainable communities. The Conservancy applauds the efforts of the Appalachian Mountain Club in the Highlands region of the Brandywine-Struble Greenway.”
In the Pennsylvania Highlands and throughout the state, waterways and the green spaces along waterways can provide some of the most beautiful and locally-accessible outdoor recreation opportunities through the development of walking trails and river access locations.
AMC supports these efforts by working to create the Pennsylvania Highlands Trail Network, which will connect existing natural areas and trails throughout the two-million acre Pennsylvania Highlands landscape. AMC has also published the “Pennsylvania Highlands Regional Recreation Map and Guide.”
Highlands Mobile has optimal functionality on a touch screen Smartphone or Tablet computer. Desktop users can also access the guide for information about parks and trails in the region, in addition to having the mobile link sent directly to their phones.
Founded in 1876, the Appalachian Mountain Club is America’s oldest conservation and recreation organization. With more than 100,000 members, advocates, and supporters in the Northeast and beyond, the nonprofit AMC promotes the protection, enjoyment, and understanding of the mountains, forests, waters, and trails of the Appalachian region.
The AMC supports natural resource conservation while encouraging responsible recreation, based on the philosophy that successful, long-term conservation depends upon first-hand enjoyment of the natural environment.
To learn more about AMC’s conservation and recreation projects, visit the Pennsylvania Highlands webpage.
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10/24/2011 |
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